This Little Light of Mine
~+~Keira~+~
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, slumping down and tilting my head forward so that my hair cascaded over my face. The contrasting raven-color against my pale skin always fascinated me. It was like a convergence of night and day, my natural blonde painted black to match the remnants of my twisted insides.
I was fully aware that I couldn't continue hiding behind my hair, but I didn't have the fortitude to showcase a false strength. Maybe, I was fake in my own way, but at least the way that I looked reflected what I knew existed inside of me – death. I was in perpetual mourning, not for the loss of my parents but for the loss of who I used to be.
Watching the social interludes of my classmates was draining. Lunchtime was the worst. They gathered together, obvious in their pleasure over being free from the educational tethers that bound them. All that I wanted was to get back behind my desk, where the only person that I had to feign interest in was the teacher at the front of the classroom.
Bright side, I never really had to disregard anyone. As if they had been made aware of my placement,they purposefully ignored me.
Our class was small, grade eleven mixed in with grade twelve, twenty students in total. The concept had surprised me, initially, being that there were individual classes for the younger grades. The enrollment seemed to diminish with progression. The future came second to the present, and sadly, life outside of the educational system demanded more of a hands-on effort.
As an outsider, a pale-faceto boot, I had expected some general ribbing that came as a prerequisite for growth. Thankfully, no one tried to talk to me, befriend me, terrorize me ... console me.
They simply let me maintain my invisible status, never questioning why I was there. I had two theories about why. Option one – they already knew the answer. With so few people, it would have been impossible for my forced integration to come without a back-story. Option two (the more probable theory) – they had been warned to leave me alone. Sure, initially that was great, but after the first week, it was just awkward. Outsider or not, their maintained distance was unnatural. They all avoided me, except for him.
I had realized pretty quickly that I had been given my own permanent security detail. Regardless of my desired anonymity, someone would always be hovering.
Queue Seth – the absolute bane of my current existence on the Quileute reservation. He had an infectious enthusiasm that nauseated me. How else could I describe the twinge in my gut every time we made eye contact?
I tried my best to pretend that I didn't notice his constant visual, but sometimes the boy simply made it impossible not to.
When I stood from the table to place my refuse in the trashcan, I purposefully walked the full length of the cafeteria to avoid passing by him. It didn't escape my attention that he stood from his table, completely oblivious to the group he had been with prior to my departure, as I exited.
I knew that he wouldn't try to talk to me – he had only made that mistake once – but it still crawled under my skin that he followed me around like a lost … well, a lost puppy, truth be told. I took my backpack from the hanging post and made my way back to the classroom. While there were several minutes left of lunch-hour, I had no intentions of making the most out of them.
I took a seat all the way at the rear of the classroom, turning slightly to gaze out the window. There were several students fooling around outside, heedless to the fact that the sky was, yet again, dampening the earth at their feet. They didn't seem to mind, and I guessed I really didn't, either. The Washington weather matched my constant mood – wretched.
I couldn't even blame it on the accident, not really. I hadn't been a candidate for the cheerleading squad, even before it all had gone to shit. Had I ever been as happy as the carefree teenagers tossing footballs back and forth outside? No. Never. Not even before the wreck.
I caught his movement in my peripheral view and intentionally kept my eyes glued to the window. The chipped paint was suddenly fascinating. The knot that had formed in my stomach tightened to a debilitating degree the longer I sat there. I knew that he was staring at me again. I contemplated turning to face him, giving him a one-finger salute, and then carrying on about my business, but I just couldn't find the resolve to tell Seth to piss off.
I couldn't find the resolve to tell him ... anything. The one time that I had tried to communicate with him, I had been left to stare stupidly into those adorable brown eyes. I couldn't find the words to articulate what I really wanted to say, which was leavemethehellalone. My commentary got lost somewhere in the endless quicksand of his eyes, and I had been left with no choice but to flee, before I got sucked inside them.
When the students started filing in, I looked down at my hands, careful to avoidactually seeing any of them. I was a stranger – in a strange place, during a strange situation. I didn't want to get to know them; I didn't need to.
Once I turned eighteen, I would be able to leave my temporary prison. Until then, I was stuck dealing with the absurdity of my current surroundings. How Sam and Emily Uley had managed to finagle temporary guardianship over me after the accident would forever remain a mystery to me. I didn't mean to seem ungrateful – okay, so I am completely ungrateful – but just because they had found me … like they had, shouldn't have meant that I was stuck with them. Moreover, it shouldn't have meant that they would be stuck with me. Regardless, even their strange coercive control couldn't last beyond me reaching the adulthood mile-marker.
Two weeks – that was all that I had to wait. While I could have put in a petition for emancipation, which would have been granted as I had no living relatives, there was still the pending court time to consider. I was better off letting nature take its course. Nature, it seemed, wanted me to be under the care of Sam and Emily Uley. Did I mention that nature sucks?
I stuck my thumbs through the hems of my fishnet shirt, continuing to survey my hands. While Mrs. Thomas droned on about World War II, I marveled over my pale coloring through the holes. There was something indescribably sexy about flesh under mesh, and I somehow managed to distract myself from coherency for the rest of the afternoon, thanks to my textured sleeve.
I hadn't even heard the final bell ring. There was no tangible link to consciousness until queen mega-bitch was snapping her fingers in front of my face, like she was trying to give Bobby Badfingers a run for his money.
Trance thwarted, I refused to acknowledge my awkward state. I stood from the seat, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and stomped toward the barely functional Ford Taurus waiting outside for me. I might have been a typical, argumentative teen, but I wasn't about to let my rebellion be the cause of my getting soaking wet on the walk back to the Uley's - despite the short distance. Was I cantankerous? Yes. Was I stupid? No.
Besides, Leah was about the only person I could stand to be around for longer than two seconds at a time. Her general hateful demeanor and back-biting commentary was entertaining andreal. She didn't pussyfoot around, and she didn't take any of my unnecessary shit, either. Too bad she was stalk-tacular's older sister. If not for that fact, I might have actually admitted to liking her.
I pressed my face against the window glass and waited. I had no doubts that their delay was because they were talking about me. I could have cared less. I just wanted to get back to the room that had been deemed as mine, so that I could shut the door and try to pretend that none of them existed – that I didn't exist.
I felt something wet on my cheek, and I flinched. Whatthehell? Sucking in a mouthful of air, I wiped furiously at the liquid that was violently accosting my sight. The last thing that I wanted was for them to see me cry. It was bad enough that I was doing it, but I definitely didn't want to share in my emotional slip with either of them – especially, Seth.
Thankfully, I was able to pull my shit together before they entered the car. I had somehow managed to avoid Seth's generally scrupulous survey. He was slumped down in his seat as though someone had properly chastised him on the way out. While I initially wanted to thank Leah for whatever intervention she had started, the longer that I was forced to stare at the back of his hung head, the tighter the damned knot got in my gut.
When we pulled into Sam and Emily's driveway, the car was barely stopped when I tore open the door, forcing in a deep breath of the uncontaminated air. The tension in the Ford had been smothering me, but the air outside was no less constricting. I needed to get inside to the room. Behind the closed door, I could revive all of the emotions that I had spent the day massacring.
I barely registered Seth's searing touch on my shoulder as I passed him. A few more steps and I would be in the free and clear. The smell of Emily's kitchen skills simply reminded me of what this place would never be to me. Home.
With my eyes on the prize, I stomped past her and into my sanctuary. I slid down the frame of the door I had slammed closed, the tears freeing themselves as though pouring out from a broken dam. When I had expunged everything inside of me, when the silent sobs were the only thing left, I let go. The darkness covered me in a cool, welcoming embrace.
~+~Seth~+~
I felt it then. It was like a crushing weight that made it impossible to stand on my feet. I wasn't weak; I knew that, but the complete and utter despair I was sharing with her was debilitating. With shaky breaths, I laid on the floor until I felt a cool, gentle hand brushing across my cheek. Emily was wiping away my tears.
"I think you should talk to her," Emily said softly.
"No." I withdrew immediately from her touch and was left feeling guilty for my instinctual response.
"Someone is going to have to tell her, eventually," she persisted. "I think it should be you."
"She's going through enough right now, without me adding to her problems."
"This isn't a problem," she reminded me.
I shook my head and fought for the strength to stand. Sam helped me to my feet, the look of sympathy boring into me with the velocity of a wrecking ball.
One month ago was the beginning of the end for me. It should have been the beginning, period.
I had always been a relatively easy-going person. I hadn't even minded when I had found out that my spare time – what little I had – would be spent turning into a creature that most people would be terrified of. I was actually pretty proud of my wolf-form.
What I hadn't expected was my world to be torn asunder by an accidental encounter with a strange family, who had taken one of the tight curves to La Push a little too quickly, and I certainly hadn't expected that the only survivor of that crash would end up being the direct link to my earth.
I had imprinted on Keira Gravan, and she had no idea what that meant. That wasn't the small of my concerns, either. She had no idea about our traditions, our history, and most importantly, she had no freaking clue about the fact that I could turn into a six-foot-high wolf in the blink of an eye. She was a tourist.
It could have gone worse, though. I could have lost her. After the accident, when the hospital was trying to get into contact with any sort of family – thanks to Charlie Swan's police connections – we had learned that she had no family to go home to. That had been a uniquely bittersweet moment for me. I was heartbroken because of what she had gone through, but maybe, I didn't have to lose her before I had even gotten the chance to know her.
When Sam and Emily had offered to take her in, everyone involved had agreed that it was the best possible short-term solution for her. Keira wasn't impressed with the idea, but when given the alternative – a trip back to an empty house full of memories – she had conceded to waiting out her minor-time on the reservation.
That had given me roughly two more weeks to figure out some way to tell her the truth about everything, in a way that wouldn't have her running for the first cliff that she could jump off of.
I heard Leah honking from outside – she was still avoiding Sam as much as possible – and I made slow, heavy steps toward the door. I didn't want to leave her. While I knew that there was nothing that I could do, the idea of leaving her when she was an emotional wreck was devastating. Every step I took only further hardened the cement on my feet, and by the time that I got to the door, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to continue through it.
Leah gave me a small head nod when she spotted me. She wasn't going to make me go home, just like I wouldn't make her come inside to retrieve me. She pulled out of the driveway, checking the rearview mirror every few seconds. She seemed surprised that I was still on my feet. Obviously, she hadn't realized that my knees had already given out on me once.
"You should probably go for a run," Sam advised me. "It'll help clear your head."
My emotional turmoil was the hardest thing for me. I was a happy guy, and that happiness had often been described as contagious. I wasn't sure where thatguy had gone, but I was fairly certain that the new me wasn't someone I would like to be around very much. Her misery was rubbing off on me, and it sucked … alot.
I wanted to make it better for her, to find a way to rewind everything so that she could have back everything that she had lost. While I knew that it would break my heart into irreparable pieces, I would have traded the shift in her past to never having met her – if that would have made her happy.
She was beautiful, more glorious than any other female I had ever laid eyes on. (Thanks to Jake and the guys that had been several. There were always magazines of some sort lying around). Even underneath all her black hair, black clothes, black makeup, black …everything, I still saw the light that flickered. I wanted to help her shine again. I just wasn't sure how.
I needed my wolf to take over, to save me from the ball and chain that was wrapping its way around my neck. I didn't mind imprinting. I was actually glad that I had. I just wished that it hadn't been such a strangling process for me.
Stepping onto the porch, I let myself free on an exhale. I didn't have it in me to wait until I had made it to the trees. With a puff of sandy-colored fur, I let the wolf take over. I needed the freedom. My human-self was stuck in limbo, unsure whether to accept or to fight the connection that had been made. With my wolf, there was only sweet simplicity. I had barely touched the ground before I was making my way into the trees. What my wolf needed more than anything was to run. I let it lead me.
~+~Keira~+~
When I came to, I was lying in an awkward position on the hard-wood floor beneath me. My body hurt, and my stomach was less than impressed with the lack of sustenance I had been offering it. I wasn't ignorant. I knew that I needed to eat to survive, but that was the point ... did I want to? Was it really worth the effort? I couldn't see that it was.
Wiping at my swollen face, I decided on my course. Did it matter if I was free in two weeks, or a month, or a year ... or today? I had nowhere to go. It was useless to try to justify my escape, when I had no idea what I was running from, where I was running to. I had nothing. The only thing that had mattered to me was my parents, and they were gone. Why couldn't I have died with them?
I was sure that these overwhelming feelings of deflation were typical in similar situations, but who the hell was I going to talk to that would have any inkling about what I was feeling. I was full of hatred, loathing, and I cursed the world for tying me to it when I didn't deserve to be breathing. Because, the sad truth of the matter was that I had given up on life long before my parents had rolled our minivan over the side of the cliff – and there was no good reason for the way that I had felt so emptybefore that.
I had always been missing something, and I had decided a long while ago that it wasn't that I was missing something. I was missing – like a misfiring engine. I was broken in two, and I only had one half of myself. I had no idea where the other half was.
They had thought a vacation would help me take a breather from Port Angeles. They had hoped that a scenic journey would ignite the flame that they were certain was waiting patiently just below the surface, but they were wrong – dead wrong.
They had died, and for what? For me? I wasn't worth it. I clearly had to rectify the situation, before I could somehow drag some other poor, unsuspecting sucker down with me.
Deciding on my course, I cleaned myself up, and exited the room. I wasn't about to try to sneak out through the window. For some reason, Sam's hearing was abnormally parental for someone who had no children. He and Emily were sitting at the table – serious glances indicating that I had interrupted a serious conversation. Don'tworry,youtwo.Youwon'thavetodealwithmeformuchlonger.
"I'm going to go for a walk," I whispered, annoyed at the squeak in my voice.
I should have made it a point not to speak, because talking was clearly not one of my strong suites. The quiver in my voice was going to make it difficult to pull this off.
Emily smiled warmly, and Sam narrowed his eyes. It was almost like he could smell the fear permeating the room from my position across the table.
"Perfect," Emily said, when I was certain that Sam was going to call me on my intentions. "That will give me enough time to warm you up something to eat. Don't be gone too long, okay?"
I shoved my hands into my pocket and nodded, heading out before Sam could counter Emily's permission. It was obvious that he wore the pants, but it was also obvious that she picked out which ones she wanted him to wear.
My feet led me into the trees, where there was something of a path that had been formed from the constant use. Bright side – if I chickened out, then I would be able to find my way back.
I was thankful for the moonlight and even more thankful that the sky had decided to stop spitting down at me. Maybe, it approved of what I planned to do. As if guiding me along, a strong ocean breeze caressed the tops of the evergreens. I wasn't sure how long my feet continued their robotic movement before I came to my destination.
I had seen it before – several times, actually. It was a lot less intimidating in the daytime. My feet had constantly taken me to that very spot, like it was meant to mark the beginning of my future. I laughed softly at the realization. Ending,morelikeit.
As I stood at the edge of the cliff, steeling my resolve, the rocks crumbling around my feet, a sense of warmth and completion washed over me. I lifted my arms, preparing to release all of the emptiness that had devoured my heart for what felt like an eternity.
That was when I heard the loud bark from behind me, completely halting my progression, shattering everything that I had set out to do. My heart beat like a battering ram inside my chest, and I slowly turned around to face my fate.
~+~Seth~+~
I hadn't meant to scare her, but I had no control of the sound that let loose from my pain-filled body in seeing her so close. We were both riding the edge of despair, and I wasn't sure that anything could keep us from falling over the steep incline.
That was when it happened.
Out of the darkness, and in the shadow of the omnipresent moon, I saw the epitome of perfection. I hadn't scared her, after all.
What she offered me in her silence was the one thing that proved to me that everything would work out. My heart that was pounding ferociously inside of my chest stopped beating altogether.
I saw her smile.
The ominous darkness broke apart like a warm ocean spray throughout me, spreading and coming to crest in the center of my being.
That smile, that hopeful and glorious smile, pulled at me with the strength of a mighty wave, drowning me in the blissful exuberance of amity.
The light that had flickered inside of her burst out with the intensity of a solar flare as she looked across the expanse to me, and I knew that I would make it my mission to see that smile again. Iwould see that smile again, because it was the only thing that could maintain this free and peaceful feeling that she had blessed me with. It was her light, but she was mine, and I would do everything in my power to make her shine.